Retailers, Ranked

Vendors
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This post will be kept relatively up to date. Suggestions and experiences are welcome, to get a more accurate version of said list. A lot of it is directly copied from my post on Reddit.

S-Tier

  • Tactical Edge Hobbies

Large scale vendor, with one of the most massive ranges available. Primary importer for WE Tech, APS and Ares. Fair prices, frequent discounts and sales, honours their warranties.

  • X-Force Tactical

Often the first port of call for weird, and unique blasters such as the gas MP7, original gas K98 vendor, original Thompson vendor. Sales are rare and prices are a premium. However, prices aren’t unfair, and the premium pays for one of the best customer service experiences available. Honours their warranties.

  • Azraels Armoury

Boutique store with only a limited range, but only stocks B+ tier blasters or better. Major RnD house, leading developments such as the AzTech Apache, and Scythe. Fair prices, with good discounts on major shopping holidays. Extremely knowledgeable staff. Honours their warranties.

  • Monkee Mods

Malaysian based. But if you’re after an odd part that nobody in Australia has, and don’t want to go through the AliExpress wait, this is the place to go. At least as of 11/2021 their delivery times have been blisteringly fast. If you intend to bring in items that have seen seizure in the past (gearboxes, stocks, receivers) it is recommended that you contact both QPol/SAPol and Customs, and receive written approval to give your stuff the best chance to get through. If you’re still feeling anxious on top of that, they offer several postage options that include insurance.

A-Tier

  • Bulletproof Customs

New entry to the market without much in the way of customer feedback that I’ve seen, to give a more accurate position.
However
Company started by a bunch of the better techs from places like Azraels and Tac Edge. Knows their custom shit inside and out. The bases built on are solid brands like JG, LDT, Cyma and DB. No stock blasters available, everything’s either bespoke or at least partially modded. Longer warranties than most places.

  • WAT International

Major importer, and wholesaler, especially for LDT products. If you visit their store in person, you can get things cheap as FUCK. Friendly staff, and prompt responses to outreach.

  • UAV Me

General hobby store. Smaller profile means that often when things are sold out elsewhere, they’ll be available here.

  • AusGel

Mostly sells gels, also sells parts. Doesn’t sell whole blasters. Importer and wholesaler for ArmourTechs, and Ultra Elites.

B-Tier

  • Op-Force Delta

Small outfit. Good responses from the staff. More concerned about helping the customer get the right fit than the most expensive option. Shipping is on par with any of the big retailers.

  • ViperTac

Apparently the North Lake in-store experience is particularly good.

  • Gel Ball Warehouse

Sells a LOT of the lower end stuff for cheaper, including their accessories. For example, they offer (offered?) the RX AK74 fakelite magazines (yes the 5.45mm ones). Nothing fancy, but they deliver what they promise.

  • iHobby

Primary importer for a large range of blasters. Innovator for a large number of models, such as the GE GBBRs, DB Sigs and Berettas, and Wells AK GBBRs. Basically doesn’t do any QC on their gear. Ducks questions that might lose them a sale, such as how a piece of gear works. Warranties can be a little wonky. In the short term they are pretty good about following up and properly replacing anything after a sale, but the length of warranty isn’t in accordance with Aussie law. Falsely advertises discounts when never charging the original price to begin with. Incorrect details on their product pages, such as having an ‘extend beavertail grip safety’ on a Glock. Prices are pretty darn good.

These vendors have nothing remarkable to say about them. They do the job, but aren’t anything to write home about.

  • OzHobbies
  • Outdoors Warehouse
  • Gel Blaster Frontier
  • Sting-Ops Tactical
  • Australian Hobbies Tactical (AH Tactical)

C-Tier

  • TacToys

Recovering from a well earned bad reputation. Now honouring warranties. Acceptable pricing. Fast delivery times. Questionable legal ethics.

  • Mastr Blastr

Doesn’t QC their stuff properly. Does issue refunds properly.

D-Tier

These vendors have some serious problems, either past or present, and are recommended as a fallback only.

  • M4A1 Gel Blasters

Well behind the curve, these days. Sells a lot of mid tier, and low tier gear for decent (but not amazing) prices. Primary importer for some JG Works. Usually has spares floating around that a lot of other companies don’t. Techs will shim Vector gear boxes with tape, instead of doing it right. Honours their warranties. Not sure how long they’ll be around as their stock is often empty.

  • Zhenduo

All items ship from China and take for-fucking-ever to arrive. Items may be stopped at the border due to the fact that ABF is overly cautious. Because they are based in China, if this occurs you essentially have no recourse. In the past, their payment portal has overcharged customers without warning. Rather than refunding the stolen money, they offered discounts. Customers have had their card details stolen by security breaches in the payment portal.

  • Armoured Heaven

Failure to deliver on their TM GBBs for an extremely long time. Owner’s a little full of himself. Some overpriced blasters, but also some very fairly priced ones. Very hot-and-cold.

  • Renegade Blasters

Business hours have shortened dramatically lately. Hard to get a hold of. Signs point to maybe shutting down or having financial difficulty, so keep that in mind. One of their customers was busted for naughty states shenanigans and rolled on them to the police. May be facing legal troubles and difficulties selling.

Garbage Fire Tier

For the love of GOD, don’t buy from these vendors. If your choices are buying from them, or waiting for another vendor to get the stock in, just wait for the other vendor.

  • Command Elite Hobbies

Bait-and-switch preorder scammers, fucked pre-order customers around for months (and sometimes YEARS) before finally delivering products that were not as originally advertised. The owner is a fucking psychopath and can’t take the remotest criticism, doing things like doxxing people who speak up, gaslighting, trolling this subreddit, calling people pedophiles. Custom blasters have all kinds of problems. Does not honour their warranties. Prices are typically higher than other, better vendors. Outright lies to customers. Rebrands blasters as Atomic Armoury in an attempt to make it difficult to compare to other blasters of the same model under a different brand. Still not honouring reasonable warranties, even $500 unmodded items, as of 2022. Lies to people’s faces about the legal status of blasters interstate (08/03/22).

  • Gel Ball Undercover

After the douchebag who came up with TacToys’ shitty practices left, he went to GBU. Ridiculously overpriced. Custom blasters are hot garbage. Hides the branding of many blasters to make them difficult to compare to. No longer honouring warranties, even on $1000 custom blasters.

  • East Coast Customs

Importer for weird WE techs that haven’t made their way into TEH hands, for a (honestly ridiculous) premium. Owner literally tells prospective customers to “suck a fat one” and to “suck his balls” for asking why the premium is so high. Has had multiple other such incidents in the past. On the old forum, called anyone who didn’t want to shell out $650 for a P99 a poor. Owner is also frankly a little homophobic, referring to things he doesn’t like as ‘gay’. Uses sock puppets to try and manufacture discontent against competitors.

  • Prestige Blasters

Bait and switched at least one customer by shipping them a plastic version of the gas Winchester, when they’d ordered a full wood one. Constant, ongoing ‘fire sale’ under a million different names, to induce FOMO. Has stock on website, that is not in hand for dispatch. Will claim they have shipped packages, which will not actually be dispatched for weeks. Even then, they may not ship the item.

  • Rosie’s Gel Blasters

Owner fired gel blasters in public, including into the empty public street. Response available here, here and here.

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Thanks for such a comprehensive list, certainly should be a very good reference for anyone looking to make purchases in the minefield of dodgy suppliers :+1:

My main suppliers over the years were:
X-Force Tactical
Monkey Mods
M4A1
ZHENDUO (back when they were half decent) :confused:

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For what its worth, most of my sales has been thru zhenduo. No issues other then ship times. I am in the states so I cant comment on customs issues.
If able, i try to order from their aliexpress store as an extra layer of financial and customer service security.

I would NOT every expect real customer service, but thu ali, id likely get a discount or partial refund.

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I think you can add Prestige down there where Command Elite sits …

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What makes you say that? Have you had a bad experience with them?

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Yep, plastic stocked version delivered when wooden stock promised/acknowledged - clearly not a mistake! But just can’t be bothered anymore …

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Got it. 100% a good reason for garbage fire tier. I’ll add them next time I’m at my PC.

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Prestige Blasters - Hear Hear with knobs on. Still waiting after 3 weeks for a purchase, getting strung along with blatant lies.

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Have you had any luck with them yet @Zim777 & @PAB ???

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Man, after about 3 weeks of me harassing them they gave me a tracking number on Monday (7 days ago) and Aus post has it at " Ready for processing" the whole time. So it either means Aus post is still getting their crap together, or Prestige Blasters have just scanned the label and put it aside until the item gets in stock - if that makes sense. I suspect it’s the latter, buying time to string me along. I will be getting stuck into them Monday morning… again. Worst. Online. Buying. Experience.

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I’m sorry to hear about this mate, but thanks for the reply so that anyone else considering spending their hard earned dollars will stay way clear of these types of retailers.

It’s shithouse that you are one of many customers dealing with these dodgy sellers, but you are “taking one for the team “ to make others aware.

I hope that you get some resolution soon, but keep us updated as to what happens, as there’s more than one way to skin a cat if push comes to shove :+1:

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Speaking of retailers…… GBA are still out doing themselves :flushed:

You can get a brand new HK UMP at discounted sale price……

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Or savadamoney on an Ex-Hire unit :thinking:

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But either way…….WTF is this bullshit! :flushed::rage:

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Warning has been added to the shame list, thank you.

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Thanks man, yeah I’ve claims with the ACC and FTQ…but they don’t exactly have big teeth, I appreciate them all the same though. One thing I do now is always say “Prestige Blasters”
instead of “PB” or "P Blasters on here, reddit, and facebook, so I can give the search algorisms a big fat target for people searching for reviews on Prestige Blasters…

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That’s a hard knock story mate, and we have all seen the ACCC battle many times before unfortunately :confused:
Your only hope for compensation is to use PayPal or credit/debit card to be able to claim your money back from the dodgy retailer.
Putting in a claim to PayPal or your Bank is the quickest and easiest way to get a refund instead of trying to fight with the retailer.
I hope that you can sort this out through a couple of quick emails or phone calls with your financial institutions rather than arguing with the supplier :+1:

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Hey mate, Prestige Blasters is now claiming it’s in the hands of aus post. For 8 days now the tracking shows ‘It’s either waiting to be picked up from the sender or ready for sorting at our facility’. Could a scam be that simple? They just scan the label, don’t send anything then just claim aus post lost it? Cheers in advance.

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It’s a Vic site, but it’s a national set of consumer rights. They haven’t completed the contract until delivery (attempted, dropped off or handed to you)

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Right on man, thank you for that. I’m Guessing they’re drop shipping and imports are bottle necked with covid delays…but they go ahead and advertise products as if they’re in stock.

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I can’t be bothered … best to stick to more reputable chaps, like Tactical Edge and X Force Tactical …

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Sorry to hear that mate :confused:
Yeah, I always used to stay with ordering from the main suppliers, which I knew might have cost me a bit extra, but at least never had any issues :+1:

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